TIGERS PREVIEW: Position-by-position breakdown

Detroit Tigers' right fielder Torii Hunter, right, is congratulated by teammates after making a jumping catch to rob New York Yankees' Kevin Youkilis of a home run during the third inning of an exhibition spring training baseball game on Saturday, March 23, 2013, in Lakeland, Fla. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

On paper, the Detroit Tigers are every bit as good as they were a year ago, and more.

Most of their deficiencies have been addressed, most of the potholes paved over, most of the rips mended.

The front office took a roster that had already won two straight division titles, made it to the World Series in 2012, and tweaked it, adding a couple of key pieces to fix some of the weaknesses, and building upon strengths.

Victor Martinez is back at designated hitter. Anibal Sanchez is in the rotation for the full season, while Omar Infante stopped the revolving door at second base. And Torii Hunter solidifies the outfield, while bringing a big dose of personality to the clubhouse.

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"The names on the back of our jerseys are pretty impressive. If we play good, that's the key. You're never guaranteed that," manager Jim Leyland said.

"The names sound good -- the pitching staff, the position players -- all the names sound good, and now it's our job to go out and play good. That's the key. That's the difference."

On paper, they seem to be a better team, one more than capable of defending its American League championship.

But are they?

"I don't know about that. I don't know about that. I'm saying because at this time last year, we had a bona fide Major League closer. Does Torii Hunter make us better? Absolutely. Having Sanchez for a year, does that make us better? Yes," Leyland said.

"But you also had a bona fide closer ... last year, that had a pretty good track record, and you guys all thought was pretty good, because he was. You weren't even asking about a closer last year. ... But a closer's a pretty important guy.

"I love the team, don't get me wrong. I love this team. ... The names on the back are pretty impressive. If we all play for the name on the front, we'll be pretty good."

Closer might be the one spot where opposing teams sense weakness. After closer-in-waiting Bruce Rondon was unable to harness his big fastball enough to lock down the job in spring training, and was sent to Triple-A Toledo, it left the Tigers having to employ a closer-by-committee scheme.

"I guess it's like a broken record right now. The closer issue is not settled. But other than that, I feel totally comfortable with our team. We've got enough left fielders to be fine. We've got enough utility guys to be fine. We've got enough catchers to be fine. We got enough good arms in the bullpen to be fine," Leyland said.

"The closer would be the one issue that's just not settled."

The Tigers are far more settled in the outfield and at the top of the batting order, though, thanks to the addition of the 17-year veteran, Hunter.

For his part, Hunter has been a big name, a headliner, a marquee player.

Now, he just wants to be a role player on a team that's filled with plenty of star power.

"I'm not the guy that comes in, wants all the attention, or walks through the clubhouse like he's all that. I'm just a regular guy that's having fun that's going to grind for you, every day," he said. "Right now, these guys have the chemistry. I'm just a small piece to the puzzle. These guys have already been there, they've been to the World Series together, they won together. They went through the little spurt they had in April/May maybe, they struggled a little bit, and then they found their niche, and made it to the World Series. These guys already have chemistry. I'm just a small piece, and I'm the guy -- I promise you -- won't destroy the chemistry. I'm going to do nothing but add to it."

Here's a look at how the Tigers stack up at each position to start the 2013 season:

With all the offensive production contributed by the Tigers' two corner infielders, the part that so often gets overlooked is their durability.

First baseman Prince Fielder brought his streak of consecutive games played over from the Brewers when he signed with the Tigers last January, then played all 162 games in his first season in Detroit. His streak of 342 games coming into the season was the longest active consecutive games-played streak in the majors. It dates back to Sept. 14, 2010, when he missed a game with flu-like symptoms, snapping a 327-game streak. In all, Fielder played in 959 of a possible 972 games with the Brewers since becoming a regular in 2006.

"I knew about his durability, and his power. How much he loved to play. I knew that. To be honest with you, I didn't really know much about Prince. Very athletic and he runs pretty good. Worked out OK for us," manager Jim Leyland said of his knowledge of the burly first baseman before he signed with the Tigers.

So what did he find out after one season?

"I mean, I knew he was a star, but I didn't know he was as athletic as he is, I didn't know he ran as good as he does, and I didn't know that he was as good a pure hitter. I knew he was a force because he was a ... home run-type guy," Leyland said.

"But this guy's athletic, and this guy showed last year he can get a big hit, two out, man on second, to the opposite field, off a tough pitcher. That's pretty good."

After a brief adjustment period to start the season, Fielder lived up to his reputation, recording his sixth straight 30-home run season, and his fifth 100-RBI total in six seasons.

He also hit a career-best .313, tied for sixth-best in the American League. That's despite teams constantly employing a defensive shift against him, and many teams choosing just to walk him, instead of pitching to him. Fielder tied for the MLB lead in intentional walks with 18.

"He's a power hitter, but a very good hitter. Sometimes you get a big power hitter that's not a very good hitter. Prince Fielder is a very good hitter, and you saw that last year, early on in particular, hitting the ball to the opposite field. Drove in big runs with two outs, turned on some later on, hit (30 home runs). But he's really a professional hitter," Leyland said.

"For the most part, he has a terrific knowledge of the strike zone.

This guy's a real good hitter. He's not just a power guy. If you think about it, our three and four, they're both really good hitters. They're not just two big, strong guys that hit home runs. They're far from that. They're both terrific hitters.

"They're good."

And then there's Cabrera, who won the first Triple Crown since 1967, turning his monster year in to the second straight MVP award to come to Detroit. Cabrera led the majors in home runs (44) and RBI (139), posting career highs in both categories, and won his second straight AL batting title.

Leyland has said he's never seen a better right-handed hitter than Cabrera.

"No, I have not. I think the combination of the hitting ability for average, and the combination of power, no I haven't," the skipper said on the "Mike Lupica Show" on ESPN.

"He's certainly the best I've had, and I think he's the best in baseball, right now. I think he's the best right-hand hitter in baseball. I don't think there's ever been anybody -- I mean, this is really going out on a limb; you get some backlash from some of the veterans, and the guys that played years ago -- I personally have never seen anybody with the opposite-field power like Miguel Cabrera. I doubt there's anybody that's played the game that hits the ball to the opposite field -- I'm not talking about pull power, I'm talking opposite-field power. He's the best I've ever seen."

He's incredibly durable, too.

Since his first full season with Florida in 2004, third baseman Miguel Cabrera has missed 29 total games -- and just one each of the last two seasons.

The middle of the infield may have far less glamor and glitz, but it's very serviceable, with two of the "old shoe" types of players that Leyland loves.

While the Tigers have been rumored to be trying to upgrade at shortstop for the past couple of offseasons, they may get an upgrade by sticking with the same player they've had. After struggling for much of the early portion of 2012, shortstop Jhonny Peralta worked on agility drills with Tigers strength and conditioning coordinator Javair Gillett in the second half, and reportedly had lost weight coming into this season.

"I think he moved better the second half of last season. He's working on those (agility drills) now, along with the weight loss, and I think he'll have even improved range. But he's not ever going to have great range. He is not going to be (Elvis) Andrus, let's say, at shortstop, that type of guy. But it doesn't mean that he's not a real good major league player," Tigers general manager Dave Dombrowski said.

"We like him. He's a solid guy.

"We think we're very solid up the middle with Infante and Peralta, and we like the combo."

Peralta will never have the most range at shortstop, but he's relatively reliable on balls hit right at him.

Where they most need an improvement from Peralta is with the bat, where he regressed from his All-Star numbers in 2011.

Omar Infante may have only hit .257 after being acquired with Anibal Sanchez at the trade deadline, but he gave the Tigers a bit of speed they'd been lacking, as well as a stop to the revolving door at second base that was killing the Tigers through the first four months of the 2012 season.

He's fully recovered from a broken hand suffered in the final game of the World Series, and played for Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic.

OUTFIELD

(Torii Hunter, RF; Austin Jackson, CF; Andy Dirks, LF)

The Tigers' outfield, in flux for so much of last season -- thanks to injuries and inconsistency -- appears to be much more stable at the start of 2013.

Much of that is due to the signing of Torii Hunter, who takes over in right field.

In Hunter, the Tigers are getting a solid defensive player who has nine Gold Gloves on his resume as a center fielder, and logged 14 outfield assists last year. Angels manager Mike Scioscia campaigned for Hunter to win a 10th Gold Glove, his first in right field, in 2012: "There's no right fielder that's played at his level, I know that," the manager told ESPN in September.

Despite his age, he still plays a lot like the guy who will line up to his right this season, center fielder Austin Jackson, the guy who's been playing at a Gold Glove-caliber level for the past several seasons. He even looks a bit like him.

"He's a lot slimmer than I was. I was jacked," Hunter laughed in an interview on MLB Network Radio's "Power Alley" show. "He has quick feet. He's out there, he gets really good jumps, and good routes. And just watching him, man, he looks like me when I was younger.

"All we're going to do is, I'm going to keep watching him -- he's always asking questions, and I answer them for him, but he doesn't need much, at all. He's three years in. The guy seems like he's been around a long time, but he's having fun."

Hunter will plug into the No. 2 hole in the lineup behind Jackson in the lineup, the same spot he hit last year, behind MVP runner-up Mike Trout.

"It's amazing because (with) Trout and (Albert) Pujols, I had the same thing, and now I have pretty much the same thing over here, with Cabrera, who's probably the best hitter in baseball ... and Austin Jackson, .300 hitter last year, and has all the speed in the world," Hunter said on the radio show.

"It's the same thing. If Austin's on first, I have to change my approach, trying to get him over, get him in scoring position for Cabrera. So I have to 'kill self,' because I want to hit that double, so he can go ahead and score, but I have to 'kill self,' and try to get him over, or at least allow him to steal, so I have to take pitches and work the count until he's able to steal. And then try to get him to third, so Cabrera can hit that fly ball, or double or homer, so he can get him in.

"So you have to 'kill' and die the self, to help the team."

Like the much younger Jackson, Hunter hit .300 for the first time in his career in 2012. Part of that was due to successfully making the adjustment of playing in the No. 2 hole, and part, assuredly, was hitting in between Trout and Pujols.

But there are concerns that he might not be able to duplicate that, given his advancing age, and an unsustainable batting average on balls in play last season.

"Yeah, I mean, people say 'Torii's old, he's not going to do anything,' this and that. But you've gotta look at the way I play the game. I mean, my whole career, I hit fourth, fifth and sixth, so I had to swing for the fence, and try to drive runs in. And I did," Hunter told the "Power Alley hosts.

"Right now, hitting second allows me to be the athlete that I am, just try to get guys over, don't swing hard, kind of control the bat, different things like that. So it keeps me under control, and I'm able to drive the ball up the middle, and go to right-center, and I have a little more bat control at the plate.

"But when I was hitting fourth, fifth and sixth, I'm trying to take you DEEP."

Austin Jackson did his share of taking pitchers deep from the leadoff spot. Despite missing nearly a month with a strained muscle in his side, he set career highs in home runs (16) and RBI (66) and led the American League in triples (10). He also drew more walks than he ever had before, and cut down his strikeout rate.

The only number that really went down was stolen bases, which dropped to 12, after 27 and 22 in his first two seasons.

"If somebody told me that Austin Jackson would to exactly what he did last year, and maybe steal a few more bases, I'd be the happiest guy in Detroit," manager Jim Leyland said. "I'd be thrilled.

"You just don't take leaps and bounds in this league. You just get a little bit better. He's at the point now, where if he just gets a little bit better, that's pretty good.

"He's survived the freshman year and the sophomore year and the junior year. Now he's ready to be a consistent major league player. Could get a little bit better, but if somebody told me he'd do what he did last year, and maybe steal a few more bags, I'd be thrilled."

Andy Dirks came into the spring having solidified his spot on the roster with a strong -- albeit injury-plagued -- sophomore season.

"The one thing about Dirks, he's a ballplayer. He does a lot of things well, but you could say nothing great," GM Dave Dombrowski said. "He's not a great power hitter, not a real fast guy, not a Gold Glove guy -- but he does them all very solidly."

Dirks will be the starter in left field for the preponderance of games, but it's likely he will start fewer than either Hunter or Jackson.

That's not necessarily because the left-handed hitting Dirks can't hit left-handed pitching, or because he's not considered an 'everyday' player. As much as anything, it's a concern that he might not hold up if he plays every day, a nod to concerns that his lower-body injuries last year, which limited him to just 88 games, were in part caused by overuse.

"Dirks hit .273 off lefties last year. It's not that I think I can't play Dirks against lefties, I just don't know if I can play him every single day without him being off the field for a few days. I want to try to keep him going. I think he can play every day, but I think you've gotta be careful with it," Leyland said.

"I'm not saying he's not an everyday player, I'm just saying that -- from what I've seen the last couple of years -- you gotta watch that close, and not get greedy. That's what I think. I don't know if I'm right, but that's what I think."

If Dirks doesn't play, it'll be either Matt Tuiasosopo (R) or Don Kelly (L) who get the nod. Tuiasosopo won the competition to be the right-handed hitting fourth outfielder this spring, but that won't be the trump card in determining when the starter sits.

"There's a possibility Andy Dirks could get a day off against a right-hander, if I think the danger zone is coming," Leyland said. "If you need to rest a guy, you need to rest him. Doesn't matter who's pitching."

DESIGNATED HITTER

After missing all of 2012 recovering from microfracture knee surgery, Victor Martinez will be a welcome addition to the lineup, putting some protection behind Prince Fielder from the No. 5 spot in the order.

The Tigers handled his return very carefully this spring, not wanting him to have any setbacks, but he came through Grapefruit League play without a hitch, physically.

Getting his timing back may be another thing, as Martinez -- who hit .330 with 103 RBI in 2011, and a gaudy .394 with runners in scoring position before he got hurt -- hit just .253 this spring.

While Martinez was the back-up catcher to Alex Avila in 2011, the likelihood is that he'll just DH and play first, although he'll bring all of his catching gear along. Near the end of spring training, manager Jim Leyland said he wouldn't rule out Martinez catching in interleague games.

"He will be our full-time DH. Knowing Victor, I've already heard, 'Well, I might want to catch.' He's happy to DH, when I say that, but this is in the back of his mind," GM Dave Dombrowski said.

"We want his bat in the lineup, day-in and day-out.

"I would be more apt to think that he'd get his work in the field at first base at this point, and then the occasional, once-every-two-months-day that Prince (Fielder) doesn't play first base, and Jim decides to rest him, and be the DH, then Victor's probably going to be the guy that plays first base at that time."

CATCHER

After a bout of tendinitis in both knees rendered starting catcher Alex Avila a shadow of himself in the 2011 playoffs, the Tigers game into last season hoping that by keeping him healthy, they could continue to get the same offensive production that had landed Avila the starting gig in the All-Star Game.

The results were 50-50. The Tigers -- for the most part -- kept Avila healthy, but that didn't mean that he was able to maintain the numbers from his breakout season a year earlier.

He lost 50 points on his batting average (.295-.243), 120 points on his slugging percentage (.506-.384) and 160 points on his OPS (.895-.736) as his home runs (nine) and RBI (48) totals were about half what they'd been the year prior (19/82).

Coming into this spring, the point of emphasis was for Avila to be more aggressive and perhaps less selective, enabling him to recapture some of that lost power.

"Hot and cold. I think there have been days where he jump-started and got out early, and there's been days where -- and maybe in his defense, he's just trying to track pitches and get himself ready. I don't really know. But he could afford to be a little more aggressive," Leyland said of Avila's approach this spring.

"He's a guy that's capable of using the whole field, but he's also a guy -- he did 20, 21 home runs a couple of years ago. I'm not asking him to do that. He's got some sock in his bat. He can turn on a ball, and knock it out of the ballpark.

"He can also hit it out to the opposite field. Not to the extent of a Cabrera or somebody. But he can get it over the fence in left field in most of the parks."

But instructing Avila to swing for the fences and expand his strike zone (and thus comfort zone), is likely counterproductive.

"Well, I don't think I want to ASK him to hit more home runs. I think if he's more aggressive early in the count, he will hit them, automatically," Leyland said. "And the other thing is, it's a little bit different sometimes when you're a position player and a catcher. It's a little bit different when you're over there at first base, fresh all the time, instead of catching, getting beat up all the time. That's a little bit different."

Brayan Pena replaces Gerald Laird as Avila's backup, and will likely get somewhere around the 60 games and 200 at-bats that Laird was given a year ago.

There's no question that the starting pitching was the overriding reason the Tigers made the World Series in 2012.

How tough were they?

Through the five-game AL Division Series against Oakland, the Tigers starters threw 34 2/3 innings (all but nine of the total), giving up five earned runs (1.30 ERA) on 21 hits, striking out 41 and walking 10.

Through the four-game AL Championship Series against New York, the starters threw 27.1 innings, giving up two earned runs (0.66 ERA) on 14 hits, striking out 25 and walking nine.

At one point -- from the start of Game 5 of the ALDS through the first eight innings of Game 3 of the ALCS -- the starters recorded 30 1/3 consecutive scoreless innings. According to STATS, LLC, it's the longest streak by one club's starting pitchers in a single postseason.

Before that, in the regular season, the race between Justin Verlander (the Cy Young runner-up) and Max Scherzer went right down to the wire, as they finished Nos. 1 and 2 in baseball in Ks.

Even better than those facts?

How about the thought that all four of those playoff starters, Verlander, Scherzer, Doug Fister and Anibal Sanchez, are under team control for at least two more seasons, giving the Tigers one of the deepest rotations in baseball for the near future.

"He gives us that type of depth in the rotation, where all of a sudden, you look at the first four, you start saying Verlander and Scherzer and Fister and Sanchez -- when you look at those first four, we think they can match up with any four in baseball," GM Dave Dombrowski said of the decision to re-sign Anibal Sanchez in the offseason.

Add in Rick Porcello, who beat out Drew Smyly in the spring battle for the final spot in the rotation in 2013, and you've got a formidable force.

And it's one where the individual members can feed off the success of others.

"When you see other starters go out there and just mow lineups down, and have success, you want to almost one-up it. You don't want to watch everybody else do good, and you go out there and suck it up. It just gives you that fire, to repeat it. If you can do it, I can do it," Smyly said during a run of sterling starts by the group this spring. "It's fun when everyone's pitching well, when everyone's doing good. It's just making everyone compete against each other, to pitch just as good as the last person."

The only limitation that the Tigers have with respect to starting pitching is that they don't have a ton of it beyond the top six. The depth that has come into play when injuries hit over the past few years has all but evaporated, thanks to a string of trades, part of the reason that manager Jim Leyland wasn't unhappy to see Porcello and Smyly both stay with the team.

"We don't have a lot of rotation depth, to be honest with you, as we speak. We have some some prospective rotation depth, but most of it's not quite ready yet. So having those six guys is a real treat. We've got six for sure. We've got some other candidates that I would have to say, with all due respect, are not ready yet," Leyland said. "We don't really have, right now, a lot of young guys that are knocking on the door."

The question mark of spring training has become the question mark of the regular season.

Who will close out games?

The inside track on the job went to rookie Bruce Rondon, but he could not harness his command, and will start the season at Triple-A Toledo.

It wasn't just results that kept Rondon from sewing up the job -- it was other things, like how he handled himself, and how he used his stuff.

"You gotta be careful. When the bright lights come on, and the extra tiers are on the stadium, it's a little different," manager Jim Leyland said. "He's gotta be able to block everything out. That's why the mentality of the guy getting (out No.) 25, 26 and 27 has to be a little bit different than the other guys."

While Rondon will likely get a chance at some point this season, the Tigers will operate with closer-by-committee. While several relievers will get a chance, don't expect one to be named the closer, unless he takes the job and runs with it.

"We definitely have guys that can close A game. Whether we have guys that can close games is a different story. I think whether they would hold up, physically, mentally, I'm not sure of that," Leyland said. "We have some guys that could close a game at any time: Benoit, Coke, Dotel, Alburquerque. They could all close a game. It's just, would they withstand the wear and tear, and the mental pressure and physical pressure of doing it four, five times a week?

"That would remain to be seen. I'm not sure we have that."

Does the lack of an established closer concern the Tigers themselves?

"No. I think we've got numerous guys that can do that. ... I don't think there's any need to worry about it. If somebody else (other than Rondon) needs to fill the role, we've got guys that are more than capable of it," ace Justin Verlander said. "I think you can definitely win one without (a dominant closer). I hope we have one. I think you can definitely win one without it."

A non-roster invitee who'd emailed the Tigers to get an opportunity, Matt Tuiasosopo ended up being the surprise of spring camp, winning the job over a slew of competitors as the right-handed hitting fourth outfielder to complement Andy Dirks in left field.

He won the steep competition -- which included incumbents Quintin Berry and Brennan Boesch, star prospects Nick Castellanos and Avisail Garcia and Rule 5 draft acquisition Jeff Kobernus -- by ripping up opposing pitching, once he got comfortable. After a cold start to the spring (0-for-14 with eight strikeouts) following his son's complication-filled birth in mid-February, Tuiasosopo hit .370 with power (four home runs, six doubles) the rest of the way.

The former third-round pick of the Mariners had spent parts of three seasons in Seattle, posting a .176 average in just under 200 career at-bats, before spending the last two seasons at the Triple-A level.

"He's a player. His spring -- he's been unconscious this spring, and he's showed that he's got the maturity level to go out there and get it done," teammate Phil Coke said on MLB Network Radio's "Inside Pitch" show. "He's been around game long enough to know what he's doing."

Tuiasosopo will primarily be in left field, he could play either corner infield or outfield position, if needed.

Don Kelly is no stranger to the Tigers roster, having spent the last four seasons in Detroit, but there were several times in the past year where it looked like there might not be a fifth. The ultra-utility player -- he's the only active MLB player to have lined up at all nine positions, including pitcher -- was designated for assignment midseason last year, but decided to return to the organization and hope he'd get called up.

He was called up just before the start of September, and made the playoff roster, getting the walk-off sacrifice fly to win Game 2 of the American League Division Series.

"This is why you play the game. This is what you dream about as a kid," Kelly said. "This is unbelievable. It's a long road to get to the big leagues," he said before the World Series. "You've got to keep battling. This is why you do it."

It continued to be a battle for Kelly, though, as he was removed from the roster after the World Series, making him a free agent. After looking around, the 33-year-old Kelly decided to return to the Tigers again, signing a minor-league deal, with an out clause, should he not make the Opening Day roster.

A spring in which he hit .320 and tied for the team lead in home runs (four) -- and the knowledge that he can comfortably play defense almost anywhere on the diamaond -- ensured that he did make the roster, finding out he'd narrowly edged out Quintin Berry in the final week of camp.

"This is home," he told reporters after learning the news.

Despite having spent all but 27 games in his 11-year career with Detroit, Ramon Santiago flirted with leaving the Tigers after 2011, looking for a full-time gig somewhere. When he didn't find one, he came back to the Tigers as their key reserve, signing a two-year, $4.2-million contract for 2012-13.

That didn't look like so much of a bargain when, after skipping his usual winter ball stint in the offseason, he hit just .206 in the first year of the deal. The organization urged him to play this winter, and he feels like it helped, even if his spring wasn't exceptional.

"Yeah, it's a positive thing for me, because, like I don't play every day here. There, at least I get 150 at-bats, and really work through, facing live pitching," he said. "It's worked pretty good for me the last couple of years, and last year, I don't do it, and I don't do too good that year."

Santiago narrowly beat out Danny Worth for the final spot on the roster, a decision that may have been based as much on economics (Santiago's contract, Worth still having an option year left) as performance.

The switch-hitting Brayan Pena will back up Alex Avila behind the plate (although Victor Martinez may end up pre-empting that duty during interleague series), replacing the departed Gerald Laird. Pena's coming off a season where he recorded a career-high 25 RBI in a reserve role in Kansas City, and his .265 average and .645 OPS against left-handed pitching last season will come in handy when Avila gets a rest against tough lefties this year.

He's caught 30 percent of would-be base stealers in his seven-year big league career, and his presence gives the Tigers' top catching prospect, Bryan Holaday, another year of seasoning at Triple-A Toledo.

Matthew B. Mowery covers the Tigers for Journal Register Company. Email him at matt.mowery@oakpress.com and follow him on Twitter @matthewbmowery.